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Thursday, 19 February 2015

Vegan Cottage Cheese with Chives

I was chatting to my older sister online when she mentioned a craving- cottage cheese and marmite on toast. When we were little we used to eat that snack ALL the time. Some people may find either of those toppings repulsive but if you have the same tastes as us, you can understand how delicious it is.

Since my sister has adopted the vegan diet for lent we were discussing vegan cottage cheese alternatives. I started researching different methods of making cottage cheese and decided to try one using soy milk. Soy milk curds are essentially tofu but it all depends of the consistency and the flavourings you add so that the curds turn out the way you want. And the result? Extremely tasty and extremely authentic tasting vegan cottage cheese! Tadah!

Loads of recipes called for different methods and amounts and so I just experimented with what I thought would work, and it did! The thing that amazed me most about this was how simple and quick it was! I thought there would be hours of curdling and straining involved. But I went from soy milk to cheese in about 20 minutes. Amazing.

Right- to the recipe!

Ingredients:

1 litre sweetened soy milk

4 tbsp vinegar or lemon juice

Good quality olive oil

Fresh chives

Salt

Method:

Pour the soy milk into a pan, and gently bring it to the boil whilst stirring.

When it starts to boil, take it off the heat. Add in the lemon juice or vinegar spoon by spoon, mixing as you go. It should start to curdle!

Stir it well, then you can strain it! I used a muslin cloth but don't fret if you don't have one, you can use a clean pair of tights, or even a tea towel. Transfer to the cloth and squeeze out the liquid over a bowl.

Squeeze out the whey (liquid) but save it, as you may want to add some back in. You dont' want the cottage cheese to be too dry.

Next, take it out of the cloth and you have the cottage cheese!

Have a try- is the taste of lemon or vinegar off putting? I love lemon normally but I thought it tasted a bit weird in this. If you agree- don't fear! Just put the cheese back in a bowl with some fresh, cold water and strain it again. This way it cools it down as well so you can eat it immediately :P

Now you have your cottage cheese you can add flavour! I added 2 tsp of olive oil which I highly recommend, it makes it creamier and richer. You can leave this out if you would like it low fat. I also added fresh chives, a pinch of pink salt and pepper.

The finished result is soooo good and SO QUICK. Will definitely be making this all the time!

Considering a litre of value soy milk is 60p, you are basically making a pot of cottage cheese in 20 minutes for 60p. Happy days!